As
of two weeks ago I have started a new semester of college, which means I’m
still adjusting to the demands between schoolwork and blogging. For now I’ll
just focus on writing short and informal stuff and leaving longer essays for
Blogathons and film/topics that inspire analysis. Still, I saved up some short
reviews of the films I saw during August just to make up for the dead time.
Bojack Horseman Season 3
Still
the best show on Netflix. Season 3 is a bit less serialized than the previous
seasons, but each episode has a magnificently composed arc to them that reveals
darker shades of Bojack, Hollywoo(d) and his dwindling group of friends. The mostly silent episode “Fish Out of
Water,” is an outstanding episode that perfectly represents the show’s brilliantly
zippy and dark comic style whilst experimenting with said formula. However, it
is heartbreaking and brutally honest episodes like “The Best Thing That Ever Happened”
and “That’s too Much, Man!” that make me committed to this show. The show may
not replace Bob’s Burgers in terms of
pure condensed laughter, but that not really the show’s mission at this point. Bob’s Burgers is more interested in
being The Simpsons for a new generation;
Bojack Horseman aspires to being something
like Pagliacci.
Stranger Things
The
show is a solid sci-fi mystery thriller that is filled with enough creepy
monsters, government conspiracies and psychic children to keep the genre fans
addicted. It is also a shameless pastiche of early 1980s pop culture, referencing
the likes of Steven Spielberg, Steven King, John Carpenter and many more, which
are fun for a while but become distracting to a frustrating degree. Often the
show is more interested in creating entire scenes around a reference for its
own sake rather than invoking an actual honest emotion or thrill. That is
college film shtick. Thankfully the cast is outstanding, Winona Ryder is better
than ever, bringing tenderness and intensity unseen from her, David Harbour
takes the Chief Brody archetype and adds a harder edge to it with great results,
but it is the leading quintet kids and their nerdy camaraderie that make this
show stand out. The show could easily just be about them playing their Dungeons
& Dragons campaign and it would still work; those kids are just that good. Stranger Things is an engaging show with
great potential; hopefully next season will use homage to create stronger drama
and not just trivia game fodder.
Penny Dreadful S1-2
Penny Dreadful is about a witch, a cowboy,
Victor Frankenstein and a vampire hunter and his manservant fighting supernatural
crime in London, of course it is awesome! On paper it sounds derivative to the League of Extraordinary Gentleman but the
concept of a supernatural drama starring a group of public domain literature
characters is too broad for just one franchise. The espionage tales of the Extraordinary Gentleman had more in common the Suicide Squad than Penny
Dreadful—trashy film adaptation and all. Penny Dreadful is a more opulent horror driven experience that is
striking with its ghoulish beauty and over-the-top acting from the likes of Eva
Green and Timothy Dalton.
Best of Enemies
A
documentary about a series of debates between the conservative journalist
William F Buckley and the liberal author Gore Vidal, which aired on ABC as part
of the network’s coverage of the 1968 primaries. Their purpose was to comment
on the candidates, but every week it turned into snippy arguments about their
ideologies and lifestyles, and it is hilarious. Granted it is hilarious until the film delves into the bleak
implications these debates had on the media, at which the film reaches a sort
of quiet profundity.
Hitchcock/Truffaut
Another
documentary about two powerhouses meeting face to face; granted filmmakers
Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut were hardly mortal enemies but distant
admirers who met for a series of interviews about Hitchcock’s filmmaking
technique. The process lasted a
week but it resulted in a book—of which the film got its name—that changed the
common perception of Hitchcock from a light entertainer to the Hollywood
auteur. While the film often
lapses into advertising the book than examining the key subjects, it is worth
listening to the recordings of Truffaut and Hitchcock and witness these distant
admirers evolve into creative kin.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
No
joke, after finishing my midyear review I went to see this film, based on my
parents’ recommendation, and afterward I kept kicking myself for not being able
to fit it in the list. Hunt for the
Wilderpeople is a hilarious and touching family comedy that blends the best
elements of Pete Doctor and Wes Anderson films with gleeful and unpretentious
style. This film—along with Love &
Friendship and The Lobster—prove
that cinematic comedy is not lost this year.
Finding Dory
Thirteen
years after Finding Nemo, everyone’s
favorite forgetful blue fish Dory spontaneously realizes that she had a family
and goes on the hunt for them. This leads to Marlon, Nemo and Dory getting lost
in SeaWorld and hijinks ensue. The comedy is a bit uninspired, the
highlight is Ed O Niel as an agoraphobic octopus but the film is mostly filled
with simple slapstick and callbacks to jokes from the previous film. However, the one element that is outstanding
is how the film expands Dory’s short-term memory loss as a disability for the
character. Instead of making it a silly joke as it was in 2003, the film shows
Dory as she struggles with her memory loss in a very honest and sensitive
manner, but also inspiring as she manages it with great success. Finding
Dory is no Toy Story 2 or 3 but it is certainly their best sequel
that does not involve cars or monsters.
Danger: Diabolik
Based
on an Italian comic of the same name, this is Mario Bava’s low budget crime
film that answers the question, “what if Bonnie & Clyde had James Bond’s
gadgets?” The story is about Diabolik and girlfriend Eva, master thieves who
raise hell in Europe, robbing every bank in sight whilst always being one step
ahead of the authorities. Diabolik and Eva are pop-art anti-heroes; nothing
really matters to them as long as they look cool doing their work. Sadly, the story is not as clever the
heroes, many of the story beats are cool on the surface but any hint of logic
would destroy them. The tacky dialogue—over-dubbed by some painfully stiff
English voice actors—does not help either. Still, there is some absurd fun to be had, and it would also
make a nice double bill with a certain Adam West superhero film…
Batman (1966)
Holy segue, its Batman! Ah yes, the
spin-off film of the (in)famous Batman
TV series from the 1960s; depending on who you ask, it is either a fun relic of
a more innocent time or garish trash that reduced super-hero comics into an adolescent
product. As someone who is both too young to understand and too old to care
about such history, the film is pure adorable fun. Batman is
certainly camp, Adam West’s and Bud Ward’s deliver their pun-filled lines with
the dramatic conviction of Rod Serling and the posse of villains chew the scenery
like frenzied sharks, but the film is bright, punchy, and never dull. Speaking of sharks, there is clear
method to the madness, the film features the frequently mocked Shark Repellant
Bat-Spray, but it is taken from a whole shelf of Bat-Sprays, including ones for
barracudas, manta rays and even whales. Whales! Only in a truly evil world
would one need whale repellant, or a hilariously comic one.
Point Break
(2015)
Oh
boy. Ignoring that this film looks less like a adaptation of the 1990s Point Break than a direct-to-video stunt
film that was turned into a remake in the post-production phase. Ignoring that
Luke Bracey’s lifeless interpretation of Johnny Utah makes Keanu Reeves look
like Daniel-Day Lewis. The fact is that this remake is horrifically dull action
film, even by mediocre action standards. Every story beat can be spotted a mile
away, every frame of film is filtered with a sickening green tint, and the
action, by unwitting design, has absolutely no tension. The stunts are certainly
elaborate but because every character is an obnoxiously fearless stuntman who
performs stunts for fun, and the action is composed like every stunt
compilation video on YouTube, everything feels so carefully choreographed that
there is no sense of danger at all. For all the technical proficiency that it
flaunts, the film robs itself of any sense of viscera or tension that people
should expect from even a mediocre thriller. Watching the Point Break is about as
exciting as watching a zombie film without zombies, a western without guns, or a
comedy starring Rob Schneider.
Lady Snowblood
Born
a vengeful spirit, Lady Snowblood is a hard samurai who vows to kill the
bandits that raped her mother, killed her father and her brother. She may not
have met her family but she will not rest until f. This film is a raw, intense,
bordering on horrifying samurai film that features some of the bloodiest action
sequences that 1970s Japan could offer. The story of Lady
Snowblood, while shocking, is rather thin but the action and style is so
distinct and immaculate it is easy to understand why Quentin Tarantino was so
taken by this film when creating Kill
Bill. Nevertheless, Lady Snowblood
is thrilling and clever enough to be more than just a piece of trivia.
Tokyo Tribe
Tokyo Tribe is a Japanese
comedy/action/hip-hop musical adaptation of a manga about gangs fighting for territory
and something about virgin sacrifices; it is about as sane as it sounds.
Transgressive, violent, and rude as hell, Tokyo
Tribe is the type of extreme cinema that both the cult musical crowd and
exploitation fan will relish but the debauchery and violence is so persistent
that it eventually becomes exhausting. It is like jumping in a mosh-pit at a
hip-hop concert until a muscle is pulled. As for the music, there is actually a
pretty solid mix of old school beats, the cast of rappers would not last a
minute in the Wu-Tang Clan’s 36 chambers but their enthusiasm is infectious. Tokyo Tribe is a baffling film to
experience but not exactly a dynamic one.
So
that is it. Not sure yet if I should save up future reviews like this on a
monthly basis or post them up more consistently, but that is how
experimentation works, I suppose. If you have suggestions or recommendations,
let me know. For now, as uncertainty rocks lets leave it on a happy note,
namely that Spike Jonze perfume commercial/music video that not enough people
are talking about.
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